Trust is an important outcome indicator of public governance. Institutional trust is a multidimensional concept and provides a measure of how people perceive the quality of, and their association with, government institutions in democratic countries (OECD, 2022; Brezzi et al., 2021; OECD, 2017). Government investment in reinforcing trust is particularly important during times of multiple crises.
Trust in public institutions varies across countries, due to cultural, socioeconomic and institutional factors. Yet the first OECD Trust Survey found similar drivers of public trust among the countries surveyed (OECD, 2022).
Across the OECD countries surveyed, on average 41.4% of respondents have high or moderately high trust in their national government. Levels vary widely across countries, reaching over 60% in Finland and Norway, but falling below 30% in about one-quarter of countries. Trust also varies across public institutions. Local governments generally inspire more trust than national ones (46.9% of people say they have high or moderately high trust in their local government on average) and civil servants fare better than the local and national governments (50.2% report high or moderately high trust in the civil service). The courts and legal system enjoy the highest levels of trust (56.9%) but only 4 out of 10 respondents have high or moderately high trust in their legislature (Figure 2.1).
Most OECD countries are performing satisfactorily in public perceptions of government reliability, service provision, access to information, and preparedness for future crisis. However, governments are faring considerably less well in perceptions of governments’ responsiveness to citizens’ needs and wants, and citizens’ participation, representation, and public integrity (OECD, 2022). Across OECD countries, women and those with lower levels of education and income report less trust in government. Perceived vulnerabilities seem to matter even more than current conditions: people who perceive themselves as financially insecure and, having a low social status, or feel they do not have a voice in what the government does, are consistently less trusting. On average, trust in the government among people who feel they have a say in the political system is 43 percentage points higher than among those who feel they do not (Figure 2.2).
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, trust levels varied substantially but did not plummet as drastically as during the financial crisis in 2008. On average it took about a decade for public trust to recover from the 2008 crisis across OECD countries. Trust in the national government has followed different trends in OECD countries over the last 15 years. In Northern Europe for example, trust has been rising almost constantly since 2015; since 2019, countries in the region have recorded some of the highest levels of trust in national government among OECD countries. Other regions, such as Central and South America and Central and Eastern Europe, have been experiencing mixed trends over the last 15 years (Figure 2.3).
